Having Suffered Many Things In War
by Mercalia
Summary: The War leaves nothing unaltered in Downton. A series of drabbles and short one-offs, set during Series 2. All characters, all pairings. "The Kind Ghosts" - Downton's lost footman is not so lost, to the dismay of a new scullery maid.
1. Full Like Hearts Made Great With Shot

_**full like hearts made great with shot**_

_(Sybil fights a losing battle in the hospital of Downton. Title from "_Greater Love" _by Wilfred Owen, with my apologies.)_

There's a number like a shade that hangs over Nurse Crawley's days, and, as the war drags on, it grows and darkens like a shadow in the evening.

She cannot stop counting the wounded and the dying that pass under her hands, for she never started. With each passing day, though, she knows there is a father doomed to outlive his son, a sister who has seen the last of her brother, a soldier alone in a muddy crater, a sweetheart who will never again feel the ghost of a kiss on her cheek. Each man and boy who she looks down on – faceless, limbless, hopeless, lifeless – is beloved by someone, somewhere. If she can only help them, she can prevent a hole from opening in the fabric of life.

1917 has dragged on, breathed its last, and faded. 1918 has come in, a year born from the mud and rot of the previous years' grave, promising only rancidness and loss. Still, she cannot give up the fight. Field Marshalls are painting their masterpieces with thousands of miles of trenches and oceans of gore. Nurse Crawley's campaign is here. It is the area of a hospital bed, and the most precious and worthwhile war that has ever been waged.

Some days, she is successful. Major Clarkson and the VAD nurses carry the day and field, bringing a man out of a fever, or ridding a boy of a ragged and gangrenous stump. They staunch bleeding, change sick pails, murmur soothing words and gentle hopes by the bedsides of the restless and the despairing.

Other days, she is not, and a bed is emptied not by a recovery, but by defeat.


	2. The Kind Ghosts

**The Kind Ghosts**  
><em>(Downton loses a footman and gains a player piano. Title from the Wilfred Owen poem of the same name, though perhaps not true its message.)<em>**  
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_Downton, 1942_

The Crawleys are fortunate to have a cook who remembers the lean days of the first War, for now their kitchen is against stripped of both staff and supplies. Mrs. Mason, bless her, does a fine job scraping meals together from the ration books, with only the help of the poor scullery maid, Rose.

This morning, though, with a bleak telegram crumpled up in her pocket, Rose is far, far away from the kitchen.

"Look, dearie," Mrs. Mason finally says, "Sit down and have some tea. You're no use to me like this."

"It's not Harry," Rose sniffles, but gracelessly obliges, "Or it is, sorta. You're goin' to think I'm weak in the head, Mrs. Mason."

"Go on with it, girl!" Mrs. Mason exclaims, wooden spoon in hand.

"I came down to the kitchen last night, 'cause I didn't want to wake anyone with my cryin'. And I were sittin' at the table, and I heard the piano playin'! There weren't anyone but me in that dark hall, and the piano were playin' itself!"

Rose succumbs to another bout of sobs, weeping for her poor lost Harry, buried in the desert. She's afraid, so afraid – Mrs. Mason knows she is – that she's become unhinged. Rose has seen it happen – her friend Doris, who works on old Mrs. Drake's farm, going mad with grief, saying she saw Jacob in the corner of every field – and she doesn't want that. She doesn't want to have to leave.

A fond smile creeps across Mrs. Mason's face, and she reaches out for Rose's hands, shushing her with quiet "There, there"s and comforting "It'll be all right, dearie"s.

"Oh, Rose," she says, when her crying has subsided, "ye musn't mind that. It were only our old William. He were one of the footmen, 'fore the last war, and he's as good in death as in life. Just tryin' to cheer ye up, is all - He plays that piano, now and again, when he thinks our spirits need liftin' and comfortin'."

"Truly, Mrs. Mason?"

"Truly. Nothin' to fret about. Now finish yer tea, dearie, and help me finish this luncheon."

The scullery maid smiles wanly, and goes back to her potatoes. Mrs. Mason, too, smiles, and continues her bustling, but after luncheon is prepared, she'll go to sit by the piano.


End file.
